Keyboard Mallets/Drumstick recommendations, please!

So I recently joined my university's percussion ensemble and we're playing a couple of 4-mallet pieces. Back in college my school provided us with all the materials we needed (instruments, mallets etc.) so I really only owned a couple pairs of drumsticks that I used when I played drumset. Unfortunately, I was told by the percussion instructor here that I need to start building my own set of mallets/sticks that are particular to the pieces I'm playing as the uni only supplies a couple rudimentary sets of sticks, and since there's so many percussionists here its not viable to have all of us use just those.

So basically what I'm asking is what are some good recommendations for brands of *cheap* mallets that I could buy? I'm really broke, and I normally use vic firth sticks (exclusively really, I don't think I've ever tried any other brand) but they're so expensive.. like 30 USD per pair, and I need at least 6 pairs of mallets (2 pairs of medium vibe mallets, 2 pairs of hard vibe mallets, and 2 pairs of soft marimba mallets to start off with). I definitely don't have 180 bucks to blow though.

I'll +rep any good suggestions/reviews of brands and I'll appreciate it even more if you could provide me with links to sites selling them/ebay links!! :)